Plastic Re-enforced Concrete Fail

I was pouring some concrete and wanted to experiment by adding some plastic to re-enforce the concrete similar to adding fibers. I used regular quickrete and poured it into a plastic container. To one container I added a piece of strap that I had laying around and also a piece of plastic mesh used for gardening that I also had laying around. I tried to place the plastic close to the center of the concrete.

Supplies:

Step 1: Results

After the concrete had hardened for over a week I tested it by dropping each brick onto a my garage floor from waist height. I did this three to four times. The regular concrete was not damaged but the concrete wiith the plastic was broken more with each drop. It looked like the concrete was not bonding well with the plastic and it actually made it much weaker.

Gardening Contest

Arduino Contest 2019

IoT Challenge

Discussions

From my understanding plastic mesh would be pointless. Concretes compressive strength is extremely high but the negative of conrete is its tensile strength tends to be much lower. A good rule of thumb is tensile str is 1/4 the compressive str. The problem with plastic mesh is it may have a higher ultimate (breaking point) tensile strength than concrete but it will stretch quite a bit under stresses allowing the concrete to break before any support kicks in. you want to use a material with high tensile strength and low elongation for reinforcement. Also you where measure the concrete on its impact ability not load strength. What is your intended use for this?